Brexit And Burkinis

Brexit

The Huffingon Post, a rare example of a reasonable and responsible press publication in the UK, even if online only, recently published an article on the best response to Brexit for the UK. As a criterion it took the words of Jeremy Bentham, an 18^th century philosopher and social reformer who said that the best distinction between what was morally right and wrong was the test of what brought the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. It applied this test to Brexit and measured known voter preferences and found, essentially, that a “hard” Brexit (absolute control of borders and no trade agreement with EU) would please only a minority of the population, a “soft” Brexit (minor control of borders and an EU trade agreement) would please virtually no one and that the status quo, no Brexit, would please all but a small majority and would make of PM Theresa May the most popular PM in decades. So what is the UK going to do? Probably the first of these, according to PM Theresa May herself. So, economic suicide, political suicide (and don't ask about the morality); a death wish or what?

As a footnote, Jeremy Bentham advocated (in the 18^th century) individual and economic freedom, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce and decriminalisation of homosexual acts. He called for the abolition of slavery, the abolition of the death penalty and the abolition of physical punishment, including that of children. He has also become known in recent years as an early advocate of animal rights.

Burkinis Etc

There has been a recent brouhaha in the press in France over the fact that various notable holiday resorts alomg the Mediterranean riviera and Corsica have banned on beaches the so-called burkini, a garb that covers most of the body.  Personally I don't care what, if anything, people wear when on beaches but, being male, am all in favour of attractive exposure of female form. But that is incidental and purely a personal preference. The French justification for the ban has been overt public display of religious affiliation, which is against French law, and thereby justified. But, the argument rages, is it anti-Islamic? It turns out that the Burkini is also banned, in public swimming pools, in no less an anti-Islamic(?) state as Morocco, for hygienic reasons, and bikinis are specifically allowed. I think that if you want to argue on what is anti- this or that religion you can argue forever and will probably never arrive at any point on which most people agree. If that is the death of political correctness, I'm all in favour.

On a humourous note I caught some footage on the Internet of purported coverage of the Olympics on strict Islamic TV channels. I've no idea whether the images were in fact taken from some nations official TV channels or not but the results were hilarious. Since sight of most of the female form is banned, womens' races consisted of black blobs with hands and feet flaying rushing in a line; and how anyone made sense of the gymnastics I'm at a loss to know. How can one black blob be seen as more precise, elegant or artistic than another identical black blob? It was hilarious viewing if true but I have a strong suspicion that any channel operating under such constraints would simply not broadcast these events at all. That in turn raises an interesting point: if these events are not broadcast in some countries, does this mean that for citizens of those countries such events don't exist? What happens if one of the country's participants wins a medal….? Alice in Wonderland territory.

As a further footnote, an Islamic extremist in the UK has now been convicted of inciting terrorism, with the incriminating evidence accumulating over many years. The Islamic hierarchy in the UK has reacted to this by saying they have been arguing for this conviction for a decade. So why did it take so long for the UK authorities to act? Political correctness again.

Tests And Racism

Test Results

I was reminded of something I did when teaching at Summerhill by a post by friend Roy Terry on Facebook. Roy's post was a warning against testing children too early. He was quite right, I thought, but with reservations. The problem I see is not so much in the tests themselves, provided there aren't too many of them, but in the treatment of the results.

At Summerhill, wanting to know how much of what I had been teaching the kids had actually been understood, I told them I would give them a test. Consternation all round! We don't have tests at Summerhill, I was told. So I explained why I wanted to give them a test and said they needn't take it if they didn't want to. In the event, all the classs did take it and I corrected their papers and returned them. More consternation! I hadn't given them any scores and they wanted to know who had come first, last, etc. I said I didn't know and wasn't interested; I'd found out what I wanted to know, which was what they had understood and what they hadn't. They hadn't wanted to take the test because they had been afraid of being ranked low but, having taken the test, wanted to know how they were ranked. The test taught me that kids had learned to expect test results to rank them and, possibly, show they had succeeded or failed. But I see no reason why that should be so. In the general education system it is so only because the authorities want league tables and tick boxes which, in my view, have very little to do with education (or anything at all come to that, except tick boxes and meaningless numbers).

Racism In The UK

Post Brexit there has been a measurable and worrying increase in the UK of race-related hate crimes. That disturbs me and tends to confirm my suspicion that the referendum result was basically decided by at best xenophobia and at worst outright racism. Many Leave voters have said that it was not immigration but taking back control that was the key issue for them; but taking back control of what? Theresa May seems clear that the message was to take back control of the borders; and what does that mean? It means keeping out foreigners.

Most of the popular press in the UK which campaigned for a Leave vote is now engaged in what I can only describe as incitement to race hatred. Positive stories on immigrants are simply not reported and any negative stories, however singular, are given headlines with implications that such stories are widespread. This has an exact analogy with Germany in the 1930s and the rise of Hitler and I think any decent lawyer could make a good case for a complaint to IPSO, the Press Complaints body, for inciting race hatred. There are laws in the UK against that so why has no complaint (to my knowledge) been made? There's no prima facie case, the popular press is too clever for that, but I can't see how the cumulative body of evidence could lead to any other conclusion. Maybe it's a question of who has the will and the courage.

As an ironic footnote, recent figures show that the UK has more emigrants in Europe than any other European country. In other words, the UK has more immigrants in other European countries than other European countries have elsewhere. So who exactly is against immigration?

Muslims, The Press And Summer

Muslims And The Press

I have been struck by a couple of recent newspaper articles, or perhaps rather the absence of them. In London recently there was a demonstration by thousands of muslims against the violence of Daesh. However, you could easily have missed that fact if you weren't there. It wasn't reported in most of the UK press; anyone who reads the Mail, Express, Star, or Sun remember reading about it? Here in France a large number of muslims have attended a Catholic service at the church in Normany where the Catholic priest was murdered, to show sympathy and solidarity with the congregation. Any chance of that being reported in the Mail, Express, Star or Sun, as the murder of the priest of course was?

In my youth I remember being shocked when no lesser a paper than The Times (a reputable newspaper at the time, incidentally) was hauled before the Press Council, the UK body then responsible for press ethics, and found guilty of distorting the truth by not reporting a signifcant event: the Sharpeville massacre somehow escaped its attention. In fact, I believe that that was only the second time that The Times had been found guilty by the Press Council, the earlier time being for the same offence and, I think, something to do with Hitler; it might have been Crystal Night that was somehow overlooked. I note this only to make the point that omission, failure to report an event, can be as much a distortion as misrepresenting whatever has happened. However, I believe the Press Council had jurisdiction over newspapers only, not comics and I'm not sure about the current body or whether it is able to distinguish between the two.

Summer Rolls On

We've had a few days of storms and some rain but the excessive heat is still with us; 38 degrees in the shade this afternoon. So I've been watering frantically to keep plants alive. The formal village festivities are already over for this year and its grandchildren time for the older residents. I seem to have acquired a pet masonry wasp, the type with a thin thorax and bulges at both ends. It has been buzzing around my head as I sit at my PC for a couple of weeks now and goes into the book shelf beside me, presumably building the little masonry pots in which it stores an egg and a paralysed spider. It must go out at night because every morning when I open the door onto the balcony it comes buzzing in to continue its work. The end result is rather gruesome. When the egg hatches the grub eats the spider, turns into a wasp, breaks the pot and flies off. But that's nature. When I go to my books I'll try not to disturb the pots until they are empty.

Power Depresses Me

Power Depresses Me

There is a saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I've always taken that as true (as a tendency) but never thought much more about it. However I feel that the full truth of that saying is now coming home to roost and that feeling depresses me. I feel that the world is becoming polarised, with only the extreme right and extreme left having any audible voices, and a yawning strange silence in between.

In the UK there can be little doubt that the Brexit vote has delighted right-wing extremists and increased their power to influence affairs. In the UK also there is the case of Sir Philip Green who has undoubtedly made himself rich at the expense of both the people who worked for his enterprise and the pension-fund dependents. Legal steps may reclaim some money for the latter but there is no doubt who will be the richer and undefended poorer as a result. It is an example of capitalism red in tooth and claw; and out of control.

Margaret Thatcher, in her long tenure as UK Prime Minister, made it socially OK (for everyone) to be rich. I personally have no quarrel with that (although many other quarrels with Thatcher's tenure). Unfortunately, as a side-effect, she seems to have made that a supremely desirable goal, without any clearly inferred corollaries on how riches are acquired. There is an unstated inference that riches should be acquired legally but within a legal system that is clearly inadequate to secure financial justice for those that need it. The overall impression is: get rich by any means that doesn't get caught by the legal system.

In Europe the Brexit vote has also delighted right-wing factions and added to their power. Moreover, apart from the attitude of Angela Merkel, it seems to have produced a reaction that can be summed up as: who cares, we'll carry on regardless. The high priests of the EU show no sign of recognising any need for reform. They, after all, have the power and intend to go on exercising it as they choose, without reference to unrest (and in some cases, indeed, very significant suffering) in EU countries as a result of their actions. The reaction of the EU Commission is analogous to Marie Antoinette's famous “so let them eat cake”, and you know what happened after that.

In the USA we have two unpopular Presidential candidates at least one of whom has shown willingness, indeed eagerness, to throw military might against any nation disapproved of.

The result seems to me to be an almost global polarisation in countries that have had large middle classes (it has long been apparent in Asia) between “haves” and “have nots” that are so far apart as to invite revolution, rioting in the streets, or worse, war, in and between nations who should know better. It's a combustible situation and I don't see any fire-fighters of stature. It's a depressing thought.

Chopsticks

The fact that the Chinese eat with chopsticks is well known. The Chinese, over many centuries, have also proven themselves to be a very inventive people. So why did they never invent forks? This remains for me one of the most challenging mysteries of the evolution of the world. The Chinese do have spoons; if you have ever attempted to eat soup (of which the Chinese have always had plenty) with chopsticks you will understand why. So why not forks? They are only a chopstick with three prongs after all and they greatly facilitate the ubiqitous action of scooping up food from some platter into the mouth. If you've ever seen someone eating rice with chopsticks (platter held close to the mouth, tossing rice in) it's immediately obvious how much easier that would be with a fork or even a spoon. So why do it that way? When I eat Chinese meals I always ask for a fork. I want to enjoy the meal, not go through contortions. I know some of my friends insist on chopsticks, to show their expertise in using them, a bravura show. That's OK but surely the Chinese wouldn't want to put on a bravura show every day of their lives. So why did an inventive people never come up with the simple idea of forks, a concept which many other peoples came up came with apparently quite easily?

Summer Celebrations, Nice and Brexit

Summer Celebrations

The summer celebrations here are in full swing. After the July 14^th knees-up there were the painters in the streets last weekend and and next weekend is the village fete. For me, disappointment with the July 14^th was counterbalanced by a better than usual experience of the painters. What I most appreciate about village celebrations is the carefree atmosphere, children, cats, dogs, old fogies and everyone else enjoying themselves and not afraid to make fools of themselves. That seemed to be absent on Bastille Day. The choice of band was probably wrong and anyway they didn't start playing until nearly 10.00pm; but that didn't entirely explain the total absence of any communal atmosphere. On the Saturday evening I strolled through the market that takes place in the village in July and August and perused the paintings on display. I found them of a much higher quality than in the past, with much less tourist tat on show (paintings of lavender, sunflowers, soulful children or pin-up women) and much more genuine art. The paintings I liked were all abstract but of good quality in terms of both their vision and their execution.

Nice

News of the carnage in Nice on the 14^th didn't arrive until the next day. The village was shocked, obviously, and duly observed the one-minute's silence asked for by President Hollande at midday today, Monday. A crowd of around 150 villagers gathered, appropriately in the 14^th of July Square, to observe the minute's silence but I was disappointed to notice that none of the muslim villagers were there. Those I know would certainly have shared the shock and disgust of the rest of the village but chose not to show their faces. Elsewhere I can imagine muslims fearing violence if they showed up at such a ceremony but that certainly wouldn't be the case here. And I feel, because Islam is currently so closely associated with acts of barbarism, that it is very important for peace-loving muslims to visibly show that they disown such acts. Being a silent majority won't stop islamophobia and may not be enough to stop the world plunging into the rerun of the historical crusades that the militant muslims seem to want. If there is a God who made homo sapiens, it would be beyond ironic if religion was the cause of his ultimate demise. Someone once said that if there is a God then religion is a cruel trick He played on mankind.

Brexit Footnote

Some of my French friends have asked me if the appointment of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary was an example of idiosyncratic British humour. I tell them yes, it's a joke.

Brexit: Xenophobia Loses

Brexit: Either Way, Xenophobia Loses

“Brexit means Brexit”, the UK's next prime minister, Theresa May, has said. She has to be believed because even if she calls a general election, as seems likely, she would be favourite to win it. The open question still is what kind of trade agreement she can negotiate with the EU.

I've been puzzling over what possible solution there can be to what seems to me an unresolvable conflict. The UK undoubtedly voted for close control of its borders; warnings of severe economic problems must have been dismissed as scaremongering by Leave voters and yet the adverse effects can already be seen and more are certain to come. Optimists may see the hits on the value of the pound and the stock markets as temporary setbacks but the right to service euro currency transactions has already been taken from the City and, just the other day, the Lush cosmetics company, which employs 1400 staff in the UK, announced an end to UK recruitment and that it was moving its main operation to Germany. There can only be more of that to come as as other companies that have their centre for European operations in the UK do the same; commercially it's the only move that makes sense.

So the UK urgently needs a good trade agreement with the EU but…………..every other trade agreement the EU has with non-European governments includes clauses that enforce open borders and acceptance of EU legislation as regards trade. Angela Merkel herself has said that that position cannot be compromised. So Theresa May has the following dilemma to resolve. Negotiate a good trade agreement and antagonise all those who voted for close border control or ditch a trade agreement and condemn the UK to an economic recession that could last decades. How can that possibly be resolved?

Either of those solutions can only split even further a country already in conflict wth itself. I've been able to think of only one possible fudge, just possible because all politicians love fudges that get them out of a hole and can be interpreted as triumphs or disasters (“those two impostors”, Kipling) at will. The EU itself could bail the UK out, even if it doesn't feel like doing so. The idea of immigration quotas has already been discussed within the EU with respect to settlement of Syrian refugees and immigration control is an urgent issue within all EU countries. So suppose the EU sticks with its open borders policy (it can't realistically do anythng else) but allows quotas to be set on the number of immigrants allowed per year, as a sop to cool down the immigration debate within the EU? I've no real idea what the numbers would be but they would have to be in the hundreds of thousands for a country such as the UK. Theresa May could then negotiate a quota as part of a trade agreement and claim she had got back control of the UK's borders: a total fudge of course but that's politics and I can't see any other way out.

So the UK will have had it's triumph of jingoism over serious thought and its tantrum over the EU but, as ever, reality strikes back. Xenophobia cannot win because the UK can't afford it.

Post Brexit And Play

The Importance Of Play

There's something about the French that I've been struggling to put into word for years, such as why I enjoy village festivities and the social life here so much: some core characteristic that appeals to me. The answer came to me when I was shaving a few mornings ago. (It's surprising how many insights come when one is shaving, having a bath or shower or sitting on the loo, maybe because the brain then needs something to occupy it. I think it is quite a common experience.) Anyway, I remembered reading a travel article years ago about some French resort in which the author wrote: “The French at play are a heart-warming sight; the French know how to play”.

That is key for me. The same may be true of some other cultures (the Balinese come to mind) and the reason I find it a key characteristic is that I am British and we Brits are not that good at play. Maybe it is our Calvinistic heritage that inhibits us but inhibited we certainly are. At play we tend to be self-conscious, awkward and slightly embarassed. In order to play whole-heartedly we feel the need first to shed these inhibitions, which is probably why Brits on holiday so often get drunk and unpleasant.

A S Neill, progenitor of Summerhill school, always insisted on the fundamental importance of play, saying that it was not the opposite of time at school spent learning but, indeed, key to learning, to learning how to become a social animal in a democratic society. Paradoxically, it was the British Victorians who first thought of the usefulness of play in school time and brought it into school time-tables in the form sport. But they regarded it as a character-forming exercise of another sort, instilling discipline, courage, endeavour, etc, following rules rather than eschewing them: a very Calvinistic form of play. Neill's version of play was the diametric opposite.

Anyway, for me, the French have the answer, a form of play that is uninhibited but neither hedonistic nor alcohol-fuelled and out of control. That is what I enjoy.

Post Brexit

I am very reluctantly coming to accept that the Brexit decision will most probably be final and I detect that many other commentators with similar preferences are coming to the same conclusion. Speculating on outcomes (sic) will be the big media game over the next few months so here is my first cut at it. (It's raining and there is no football on TV this afternoon so I'm in writing mode.)

My objective reasons for wanting Remain to win (excluding personal convenience) were partly adherence to the ideal of a united Europe with Britain in it, albeit a Europe of a somewhat different sort to that sought by the Commission, and partly economic; I believed, and still do, that the UK economy would be far stronger within the EU than outside it. There is also a side-effect which I very much hope is unwanted by all but a tiny minority, so let's deal with that first.

The side-effect is racism. A minority (very small, I frevently hope) in the UK have taken the Brexit result to mean it's open house on race hatred. A 57% increase in race-related crime has been reported over the last 10 days. This may be short-lived but will only be so if the authorities crack down exceedingly hard on it. Will they or will xenophobia rule? If the latter is the case, I shan't want to know the UK any more.

The united Europe ideal still holds for me even without the UK so I hope the EU doesn't disintegrate. I never bought the idea that the EU stopped war in Europe. After World War 2 no country in Europe was in a state to declare war on another and, indeed, there was a considerable incentive to present a united front against Russia. Also, the EU did and could do nothing about the subsequent war in the Balkans, which happen to be in Europe. I do believe, though, that the EU has helped provide a solid platform for peace and does so also for close cooperation between countries on numerous fronts. All that can only be good.

However, if the EU is to hold together there will have to be important reforms. In particular, it has to get a grip on immigration. There is too much discontent in the remaining 27 countries to avoid disintegration without reform. Leaving the euro aside, although that will have to be reformed too, I expect far more input from elected representatives one way or another and a curbing of the powers of the Commission. The dreamers can dream on but will be called to account by European electorates. An obvious and fairly painless reform is to allow all EU countries the kind of opt out clauses the UK has and probably some more, bringing about a kind of mixed-speed Europe. Integration would be piecemeal, varying on different matters from country to country.

In the near future, for the UK certainly, for the EU probably and maybe globally there will be an economic downturn. That's easy to say as it is already happening. The question for the UK is how deep and for how long the recession will go. I don't expect dramatic economic consequences yet but I do expect a continuous weakening of the UK economy, in particular if the government sticks on wanting tight border controls. That would be a double whammy. The World Bank, etc, have already stated reduced immigrant input as one reason for downgrading the UK's economic status and lack of a trade agreement with the EU would certainly be another.  I expect a large number of jobs to be lost over time as business centres gradually move out of the UK and fewer new jobs to be created. That must mean less public spending and higher taxes, as George Osborne has already pointed out, to make up the deficit. It's surely a survivable but not a rosy prospect. The UK could and probably would join EFTA (European Free Trade Association), comprising the European countries outside the EU but that is hardly an economic group of any importance. If (there are going to be lots of “ifs” over the next few months) Denmark and Sweden also get pissed off with the EU, opt out and join EFTA, then that would be better, although the EU will certainly take steps to counter this. So the economic situation is survivable but still not rosy.

The immigration issue is key. Get that wrong and not just the UK but the whole of Europe could be in for a long hard winter.

That is my initial reading of the likely outcome of Brexit. It would be helped if we had any politicians of staure to get us through the mess but, currently, the UK is a would-be great nation led by political pygmies with only more pygmies to replace them.